Find Your Passion

You never know how the recession is going to impact a person or institution. For instance, community colleges. They’ve long offered programs designed to teach adults very specific job skills.

Turns out, in a recession like this one, that’s a good thing to teach.

A story in the Dallas Morning News says that enrollment among students older than 41 at local community colleges has increased significantly. The story highlights a former worker in the mortgage industry — an industry gutted by the recession and housing slump — who has returned to a Dallas-area community college to learn a new career. She wants to become a chef.

This woman is far from alone. Adults are returning to community colleges across the country to tackle new careers. For some, it’s a bit of an opportunity. A friend of mine has always wanted to work as a nurse. Now that he’s been laid off from his accounting job, he’s decided to go back to a local community college to get an associate’s degree in nursing. It’s a risk, and a big career change, but the recession, he says, has taught him how foolish it is to hold onto a job that you don’t really like for its stability.

See, there is no stability in the working world any longer.

If you have lost your job, and you are still financially secure enough to swing it, consider community college. Maybe it is time to go after that dream career.